Debris
«chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète.»Archive for history
Remember Fred Hampton & Mark Clark
Murdered by the Chicago Police Department, December 4, 1969
Stokes County Courthouse
Danbury, NC is a pretty little town along the Dan River, just about an hour’s leisurely drive northwest of my home. I passed through there today, and stopped to take some pictures of the Stokes County Courthouse (built in 1904).
In front of the courthouse stands this memorial to local Confederate war dead. A central monument displays the Confederate flag and an engraving of a Confederate soldier.
An inscription on the back reads, “From Manassas to Gettysburg. From Gettysburg to Appomatox.” A surrounding circle of smaller markers bear the names of Confederate army units in which Stokes County men served.
A few feet away, grimy and decrepit, stands the base of a memorial for WWI dead; whatever once stood atop the base appears to be long gone. The contrast with the shiny and well-kept Confederate memorial (erected in 1990) is striking.
While the Confederate memorial declares itself to be “In Honor of All Who Served”, that isn’t quite true. I don’t know whether there were any sons of Stokes County among the thousands of North Carolinians who fought on the Union side. But I have no doubt that Stokes County sent its share of citizens to fight in the Spanish-American War, World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Yet, the service and sacrifices of those men and women who fought for their country go entirely unmarked, while those who took up arms against it get the honors.
Greensboro Goddam
In the crush of a busy week, I nearly overlooked the fact that Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of the Greensboro Massacre, in which neo-Nazis and KKK members murdered five anti-racist and labor activists and wounded another eleven. As far as I can tell, the anniversary passed without any official public commemoration in Greensboro. I can understand that residents might be reluctant to recall that dark moment in our city’s history. A Truth & Reconciliation Commission held public hearings and issued a detailed report just a few years ago. But my sense, as a newcomer to the city, is that sentiment remains divided, both about the massacre itself and about the commission.
However painful, it is essential that we remember.
Natural selection: Yes, we can!
Mike Rosulek, computer science graduate student at the University of Illinois, has designed a set of images, based on the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey Obama image, to commemorate the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth. This is my personal favorite, in part because of the (presumably unintended, though Rosulek sounds like a Czech name, so perhaps it was deliberate) play on Jaroslav Hašek’s Party of Moderate and Peaceful Progress Within the Limits of the Law:
Rosulek is selling t-shirts with the images to raise money for the National Center for Science Education, a very worthy cause.
(Thanks to Concurring Opinions for the tip.)
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”
My trip to eastern North Carolina this weekend wasn’t all fun and games and pirates. I came out here to meet with a group of truckers who are organizing a union after growing fed up with having their livlihoods left to the whim of the bosses. This is a remarkable group in many ways. In a region where the Klan not too long ago paraded openly (we’re only a short drive from where a sign along Highway 301 once proclaimed “The Klan welcomes you to Smithfield. Help fight communism and integration.”), and where Confederate flags are still a common sight, this is a group of African-American and White workers joining together in solidarity. And in a state with the lowest rate of union membership in the U.S., they are doing so under the banner of an explicitly radical and militant union: the Industrial Workers of the World. The meeting — in what my son described as a “rickety old” community center — was almost like taking a step back in time; yet, for these workers, the effort represents a great leap forward. If there really is to be a revival of unions in this country, it won’t come from the top down, nor through legislative grants. It will come from the workers themselves, asserting their own collective interests and collective power.
It was in support of another such group of workers that Dr. King was in Memphis in April 1968. That’s why these North Carolina truckers chose this weekend to formally launch their union. I can think of no better way that I might have honored Dr. King’s legacy than by coming here to meet with these workers and support their effort.
Tomorrow, Dr. King’s famous dream will come one step closer to fruition, as the United States witnesses the inauguration of our first African-American President. I have plenty of reservations about Barack Obama, and little hope that his Presidency really signals a fundamental change in this nation’s politics or policy in a radical-democratic direction. Yet, his inauguration does undeniably represent an important and joyful moment. There will be plenty of time for critique and cyncism after tomorrow. For now, I’m happy to join in celebration.
McElree’s Wine of Cardui
Washington, North Carolina
“Wine of Cardui” was a patent medicine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marketed as a cure for “female diseases”. In 1916, the Chattanooga Medicine Company, which made Wine of Cardui, won a libel suit against the American Medical Association, which had published an article in its Journal calling the product “a worthless fraud”. While the jury found for the plaintiff, they evidently didn’t think much of the product; instead of the $200,000 in damages requested, the jury awarded one penny.
Now ain’t the time for tears
46 years after he beat to death Hattie Carroll — a crime for which he received a mere 6-month sentence — William Zantzinger has finally died.
